Polish Medical Questionnaires

This database contains information about 2,001 individuals gathered
by the administrators of the German occupation between 1940-42 in Galicia
and surrounding areas from questionnaires provided to Jewish medical
personnel.

Background

Between 1940 and 1942, Jewish medical personnel, including physicians,
dentists, nurses, medical orderlies, midwives and those in other health
related occupations were required by the adminisrative authorities of
the German occupation to complete a questionnaire giving personal information.

In its description of the contents of this collection
Yad Vashem states that it consists
of, "Initial questionnaires on declaration of occupations distributed
to Jewish doctors, nurses, technicians and dental surgeons in various
towns in Galicia." The vast majority but not all of them are
from Galicia.

There is no information on how many of these questionnaires were
distributed, nor as to whether any other questionnaires, other than
those at Yad Vashem, still survive. There are a few variant
versions of the actual questionnaire - in Western Galicia, the questionnaire
consisted of three pages and could be completed in German or Polish.
In Eastern Galicia, the questionnaire was four pages with additional
questions and could be completed in Ukrainian, German or Polish.

In 2003, Zvi Bernhardt of Yad Vashem and Rabbi Shalom Bronstein decided
to input the information from the questinnaires into a computerized
database. There are many questions, which are not included
in this database, that can be found on the original questionnaire,
for example, in Eastern Galicia the individual was asked to identify
the foreign languages spoken by him or her. (The vast majority
of the responders to this question list at least three languages,
with several individuals listing as many as seven).
Other questions concerned the individual's place of education, place of
medical exams, military service in World War II, wherebouts during
the Soviet occupation, bi-weekly salary and citizenship.

The document also asked for information about the individual's spouse,
and occasionally the responses contained substantial information.
This information was entered under the name of the person who filled out
the questionnaire, and is indicated by the letter "A."
That information was collected from the spouse's responses and does
not indicate that another questionnaire was filled out.

The vast majority of the documents also included a picture.
Of the 1,336 actual questionnaires, there are 74 original documents.
The rest are Xerox copies that Yad Vashem acquired.
The earliest date of birth indicated on a questionnaire is 1853.

It is hoped that sometime in the near future Yad Vashem will scan
each of these documents so that the entire questionnaire will be
accessible over the Internet. Until that time, individual documents
can be ordered from the Yad Vashem Archives by using the file number,
sub-file number and number of the document. Not all of the people
who completed these questionnaires perished in the Holocaust, although
it is assumed that the vast majority did.

Above introduction prepared by Rabbi Shalom Bronstein.

Database

This database includes 2,001 records.
The fields of the database are as follows:

NOTE B: Yad Vashem File Numbers:
The following table lists the file numbers found in File 0.6/15 and
the towns that they include. In some of the sub-files there
are documents from towns that are not listed on the cover of the
sub-file.

There are variant spellings of numerous towns in this datafile.
There was no attempt to standardize the spelling. The names
appear as they were written on the documents.

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database was indexed from the documents
found in Yad Vashem File 0.6/15. It was acquired from various
sources. We thank Yad Vashem for making this file available for
posting and Zvi Bernhardt, whose help was invaluable.
Shalom Bronstein compiled the data from the Yad Vashem files, and
submitted the work to JewishGen.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and
database expertise to make this database accessible.
Special thanks to Susan King, Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for
their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.
Particular thanks to the Research Division headed by Joyce Field and
to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.